


unholy magic

by hoverbun



Series: what happens after death [4]
Category: League of Legends
Genre: Other, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 23:02:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12663234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoverbun/pseuds/hoverbun
Summary: The lad - not much of a lad at all, but he’s young enough to be Samuel’s son, maybe even grandson - told him he was on a pilgrimage. Samuel told him there was a ferry from Bilgewater to Buhru come morning. The lad shook his head, with his long hair, and pushed the coin towards him.The Isles.





	unholy magic

Samuel is sixty-two.

He once sailed the waters of the Guardian Sea with salt on his skin and wind in his sails. He has always lived by the sea. He is close to the men who keep the peace in Bilgewater’s port during the day, with only a sloop to his name resting in her docks. From the short cliff above his wing of the dock, he can watch her, a memory of his days at the open sea but a warm one all the same.

This night is not as warm as the memories hold.

It is a fool’s curse to be walking Bilgewater at night. The watchmen retreat to their bunks, and though the streets remain lit with the glow of oil lamps inside taverns and homesteads, the closer you get to the docks, the less warm those streets become. And with it, the blades grow sharper.

Fortunately, Samuel is no fool. He knows the route to take to walk from The Happy Lady to his humble abode that attracts the least of Hargven’s thugs - it is a short walk on a well lit street, lamps tied together with string across the building exteriors to make up for the missing posts.

He knows how to get home without spending too long in the darkness.

The soul he met did not.

The lad did not appear harmed by the hecklers - Hargven’s men, or Tybalt’s men, Samuel hadn’t an idea. It was a short affair, and one against the better judgement of the old sailor; telling wharf rats to not rob the homeless often proved a fruitless and dangerous endeavour. The boy, however, allowed himself to be guided off by his elder, no matter how the eyes stared at the pair.

The lad - not much of a lad at all, but he’s young enough to be Samuel’s son, maybe even grandson - told him he was on a pilgrimage. Samuel told him there was a ferry from Bilgewater to Buhru come morning. The lad shook his head, with his long hair, and pushed the coin towards him.

The Isles.

The ship is nary more than a sailboat - a humble girl whose deck sighs with the weight of its passengers when they board. It’s a melody that sings sweet, and couples itself with the whisper of the ocean. It’s something that calms the nerves in Samuel’s throat; something to focus his mind on when he turns back to his company and see he isn’t moving from where he sits.

It has been some few days at sea. His robes are worn, and something in the old sailor makes him think about the old preachers of Noxus. He’s been there, but only once - a honeymoon for another time. His hair is unwashed, dampened only by the mist of the sea. And though his hands and face are thin, the legs he has are long - he clears Samuel by a clear five inches.

“You alright, son?” He calls over his shoulder, eyes on a dark horizon, clouded by the set sun. Like the ocean, he is soothing; he speaks like he’s got a secret for you.

The boy lifts his head in his direction, staring forward. Samuel only realizes he’s got his attention when he turns his head back again.

Silence consumes him yet.

“Just saying,” he continues, turning his head forward once more, “you’ve got me concerned here. Ain’t nobody been to the Isles, much less come back from them alive and well. Don’t know much out there.”

The wind is strong, yet eases him. His heart rests too close to his throat for him to ignore it.

“Hope you find what you’re looking for when we get there. Would hate for you to come all the way out here and be disappointed.”

Silence that stretches on like sailcloth finds them. It is only the salt, and the wind, and the rock of nighttime waves, and then, finally, there is a voice.

“I will.”

Samuel casts his head back, from wheel to man, and has to look twice when he sees the knife unwraveled in his companion’s hands. Quickly, his hand reaches for his pistol.

“I’m armed,” he says, “I’ll shoot you dead right here.”

The curiosity in Karthus’ face is gentle, lifting his head from the blade’s edge to his captain. The shadows under his eyes are darker than the black of night.

“I would not dream of bringing you harm, dear sir Samuel,” is his response. The ice of the night sets in his lofty voice, and he sounds like a sinking ship. “Forgive my display. I simply was inspecting it. It is our tool to cross the Divide.”

“Is that so.”

“Not a soul has discovered the Shadow Isles with mortal means of navigation. We will cross the Divide, the sea shall carry us.”

Samuel retreats his hand away from his hip. He knows it’s loaded. You don’t sleep in Bilgewater without a gun by your hip, or head, or hand. “Hope she can carry us home, too.”

Their boat sways, looms. There is mist that passes the open deck - one of seasalt and traces of ice, and it settles on Samuel’s face like a northern snowfall as night continues to shade the deck.

It should not be nightfall yet, Samuel muses.

The sky is cloudy, yet it had been so during the day, too. The sailor worried deeply of potential rainfall, yet it was of great fortune that it did not. Yet now, the clouds hang heavy and low, like they’re a hand reaching towards the ocean - a child reaching into a fountain, or perhaps the steady glass surface of a still pond. There’s a weight deep inside of him, and it coils to something  _unsettled_  when he hears a body move behind him.

He clutches the wheel, feels the pull of his hand towards his pistol, but Karthus strides past him, dagger seen, and watches the horizon.

Land. Distantly, then all at once, like sailing too close to shore. Then, the ship lurches forward, and Samuel only registers she’s still floating when his chest slams into the navigation wheel and the air of his lungs returns. He quickly passes to the left side of the ship, staring into the darkness of the water to inspect the damages - she floats on past the rock that caught her, and Samuel’s words are cut short when he feels the lurch of another collision, this one halting the ship all together.

“Divines,” he spits, moving forward and fixing his coat, walking down to the prow, “Forgive me, son, fog’s too thick, there’s rocks in the shore and we’re too close -”

He lifts his head, to stare at what has caught his passenger’s attention. Thick, black mist that creeps from the shore. Deep within the forest, like seeking spirits that detect the life still aboard the boat. Like smoke on the water, it creeps forward.

Samuel’s eyes are wide and he only starts speaking once he’s grabbed a long pike and brought it down the length of the prow, wedging it between stone and boat. “Get that pike, boy! We’re turning back! There’s  _demons_  here!”

His passenger is still - or is he there at all? The blood in his head beats in the sailor’s ears, loud and vicious to drown out the growing cries of a haunted mass that reach out towards the vessel. Samuel forces the pike further between the stone and the prow, wrenching her from the sea soaked rock and snapping the instrument in half. The top half clatters against the deck and rolls back as the waves pull the ship back, and Samuel turns to bound towards the wheel.

Karthus is gone. The dagger is on deck, its blade now slick with blood. In the crash of wave on wood, there was a body against the deep waves, and the mist devoured towards a point in the ocean.

Samuel hasn’t the time to mourn a stranger.

The terror pushes him towards Bilgewater, leagues away from the growing reality of a deep grave, and it is only by the mercy of coming mist that wind catches the sails. Samuel turns his head back, staring at the coming mist, the demons within -

A body is aloft. It is no human.

Samuel pulls his pistol from his belt and fires in its direction, turning his body as he does so. He fires twice, and he is unsure of where the bullets strike, if it even hits the body at all. The robes are familiar as the creature comes towards him, and it is  _Karthus_ , eyes without light nor life. He is soaked with the ocean, and in his hand glows a deep green light.

“Back!” Samuel cries, pressing back against the wheel. It turns against him, and drops his balance. “Begone! Remain on the Isles! Do not take me with you!”

Karthus lowers himself to the deck, and walks at him. The last thing Samuel can see is his hand on his throat, the tally-staff against his gut, and the smile of a man happy to die.


End file.
